Newly released survey results indicate many faculty are self-censoring.
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Newly released results from a wide-ranging survey of U.S. faculty indicate scholars are self-censoring in their communication—both inside and outside the classroom. More than half said they’ve often or occasionally “felt concerned” about their ability to express what they “believe, as a scholar, to be correct statements about the world.”
Over half said they’ve often or occasionally “altered language” in something they’ve written out of worry “it might cause controversy,” while 45 percent said they’ve “refrained from expressing an opinion or participating in an activity that would draw negative attention from external stakeholders” that could hurt their jobs. Perhaps surprisingly, survey results also suggest faculty feel more constrained in their conversations with one another than with their students.
NORC at the University of Chicago (formerly the National Opinion Research Center) conducted the survey of faculty at two- and four-year public and private nonprofit institutions from Dec. 7, 2023, to Feb. 12, 2024. The survey, released Wednesday, was done on behalf of and in conjunction with the American Association of Colleges and Universities and the American Association of University Professors, which back in 1940 joined forces to produce the landmark Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.
Ashley Finley, vice president for research and senior adviser to the president at the American Association of Colleges and Universities, said the results show faculty feel they’re “working and educating in environments in which they need to be increasingly careful and aware, at the very least, of the kinds of language that they are using.”
One in four of the 8,460 respondents said they’ve often or occasionally refrained from assigning students “texts or articles that might be considered controversial.” One in five said they’ve “been more hesitant to be the faculty sponsor or work with a student group that advocates for a particular political or social agenda.”
Nearly half said they’ve worried about students sharing their ideas or statements out of context. This worry may be altering how they speak with students. Around 62 percent said they “modify or refrain from using particular terms or words” when interacting with students because they think the language will be seen as offensive.
However, when asked about impacts on the “content” of what they choose to teach, only a quarter of faculty said they often or occasionally have “felt restricted or unable” to teach what they want.
Faculty apparently don’t feel freer when speaking among themselves, either. More than a third of those who responded said they have felt restricted regarding what they “can say in faculty and department meetings”—even more than felt the need to self-censor on social media. Furthermore, two-thirds of faculty said they’ve “refrained from raising certain politically divisive topics” with colleagues “to avoid discomfort.”
The survey also posed a question that’s on many minds: Has academic freedom deteriorated? That question was asked during what might have been the recent peak of national concern within academe over the future of faculty freedom. Many answered yes.
A Winter of Discontent
When the survey was being administered, the Israel-Hamas war had recently begun, pro-Palestinian protests were drawing media attention to campuses and the presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania were stepping down amid public outrage over their comments during nationally televised congressional hearings on antisemitism.
The survey asked faculty whether they thought academic freedom at their colleges and universities had deteriorated compared to six or seven years ago—roughly the start of the first Trump administration—or at least since they started at their institutions.
About 35 percent reported less academic freedom for faculty at their institutions when teaching. Slightly larger shares said there’s less academic freedom when faculty speak as citizens and when they participate in institutional governance. About 19 percent reported less academic freedom in research. While large percentages of faculty said academic freedom levels were about the same in all four areas, few (no more than 7 percent of faculty in each area) said academic freedom had actually increased.
Threats to academic freedom have many worried about their jobs. More than half of faculty said that in their conversations with colleagues at their institutions, “there has been increased concern about faculty job security because of the climate for academic freedom.”
The survey also looked at how responses might differ between faculty in states that had passed legislation targeting what PEN America calls “divisive concepts” and those that hadn’t. Republican lawmakers in multiple states have listed and taken aim at certain theories or beliefs that they associate with pushes for diversity, equity and inclusion.
But the survey finds “variation in legislative action has neither large nor consistent effects on faculty perceptions of constraint.” Only about one in 10 faculty said they were “considering seeking employment at another college or university” because of their state’s academic freedom climate. That percentage was somewhat higher—16 percent—in states that had passed legislation targeting divisive concepts as of December 2023. The small percentage of faculty eyeing the exits, at least at the time of the survey, goes against anecdotal accounts and less rigorous polls that have fed a narrative of a professorial exodus from red states.
Despite the survey not indicating a significantly greater amount of self-censorship in states with divisive-concepts laws, the national picture it paints is worrisome. Jeremy Young, director of state and higher education policy at PEN America, a free speech and academic freedom advocacy organization, said, “The big story is that the campaign to censor higher education has had a nationwide chilling effect on America’s faculty; professors even in states without censorship laws are self-censoring in class more than they did just a few years ago.”
About 46 percent of faculty said they feel that the local communities surrounding their institutions have become more concerned about faculty teaching “divisive topics”—and of those who have this impression, 62 percent said this greater community concern has harmed academic freedom at their institutions. Whether that concern will rise during President-elect Trump’s second term remains to be seen.